Ashley's Blog

Script

jones405 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:05:44 +0000

To me, sight is such an important sense. Without it, I could not even imagine how I would get to where I am now, but seeing as how my aunt, who has been blind since she was at a very young age, was able to go through not only high school but also to get a college degree and teach to this day is what has made this topic so interesting to me. Literacy is something that you start to learn when you are an infant. There are many things in your enviroment that you must understand before you start to use literacy. All of these emergent literacy skills are the same for a children who are and who are not blind. Although, the child who is blind will need more direction from their parent or caregiver than a child who is not blind would. My essential question that I want to answer is, what pre-literacy skills are required for children who will read using Braille in order to develop adequate academic literacy abilities.

Louis Braille developed a binary encoding scheme that represented written language for the blind, braille. This is done through the tactile sense of raised dots on a braille display. (Leibs 2008) There would be no way for the blind to read if it was not for this man, who was blind himself.

Before the child that is blind is to learn how to read braille, there are many emergent or pre-braille skills they must have. Children who can see can experience things on their own. Children who are blind need more direction. For example,while describing an object, the parents must put the object in the childs hands and explain what the object is like so they have experiences just like every other child. This is essential for building concepts. The emergent literacy skills that are needed are awareness and understanding of the environment, development of motor skills, development of tactile skills, and concepts about text.(Blake 2003) The child also needs to understand and be aware of what a book is and how to sit, listen, and comprehend. (Reed-Brown 2007) A good way to learn these skills are by using the Move, Touch, Read method which is found in the Journal of Visual Impairments and Blindess. This combination of the whole-child approach, which addresses all of the skills needed, and the progressive literacy units has produced increasingly self-motivated and prepared braille reading children from infancy to the age of five. This is done by Introducing a book by taking the child through an everyday routine they might go through and using the language in the book in conjunction with each step. Next gather together objects to go with each set of pages. Have them feel the objects so they can develop concepts. Finally “when you begin to read the book, hand the child the symbol first, so that the young reader will be able to choose stories using symbols even before words are available. As you read each page, hand the child the pertinent object and demonstrate its use. As the story becomes familiar, you can read the story without the objects. Later, the story box can be used for acting out the story and other dramatic play.(Drezek, 1999)”

Parents are not the only ones that will teach these skills to the children that are blind. The educators also play a huge role in this whether it be pre-school or elementary school. “In addition, the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1997) requires that during the development of an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for a child, members of the IEP team must consider the provision of instruction in braille unless they determine that such instruction is not appropriate.(Allman, 1999)” For a child to develop adequate academic literacy abilities, all of these pre-braille skills should be learned.

Preface

jones405 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:44:16 +0000

When the project was assigned in class, I chose to do Braille literacy. This is very important and interesting to me because I have an aunt who is blind. Before I started my research, I still did not have that much information on this. I had seen my aunt’s braille display and I knew that braille was a special way to be able to read through touching raised dots, but I did not understand how my aunt got to understand how to read braille. As a young girl, she went away to a school so that she could learn the information she would need so that she could have the same education as everyone else. Later on in life, she went through Marshall University and Graduated with a degree in education. She has been a teacher for many years now, but before she was ever able to do any of that, there would have been pre literacy skills she would have to know before learning Braille. She has inspired me to do the research on braille literacy because of all she has done. You must have literacy skills to suceed and have a good career. There are things you must know before learning how to read through braille, and that information is what I am giving you in this presentation.

Acknowledgments

jones405 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:27:54 +0000

I would like to thank Mrs. McComas, my professor, for helping me bring my research question together and giving me feedback through the entire process of this assignment.

I would also like to thank my aunt Chris, whom has been blind since she was very young, for giving me the inspiration to research this topic and understanding more about what she went through to be able read through braille.

A10.1: Evaluating the Adaptive Technology Project

jones405 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:39:40 +0000

I felt like my powerpoint presentation covered who, what, when, where, and why. The who was covered when I discussed who invented braille and how long it has been around for as well as who uses this divice. The what was covered when I discussed what the device is and how it works. When was discussed through telling when the person uses the device such as in their personal environment and at school. Why was covered by telling the reasons for using this device which is to send and receive information. I beliebe that this section of the presentation meets the standards. While researching, the a lot of the sites that I got information off of had the same information. The sites were also very broad and did not go to much into depth. I felt like the presentation gave the information needed on the technology about the cost. I feel as if I could have went more in depth when it came to the features and capabilities. I gave the general information on the features but the devices can come in so many different ways that I thought it would be good to just discuss the basic parts of it. In the capabilities I felt that it met the standards but I did not go into detail about how they worked. I thought that it may take away from the point I was trying to make about the braille display. I felt that my presentation may not have met the standards when it came to including supporting details from the text and supplemental articles. I wanted to get a personal statement from someone on how it was helpful to them but was unable to find one. I did state how it can be used in class to help the child in their education but I may have needed to state more. I feel that if someone wanted to get a basic knowledge of the braille display, they would get that from my presentation. It gave pictures of what the device may look like and explained how it worked and why along with many other things. I thought my presentation was error free and proffessionally produced. However, I did question if my citations were correct. I noticed that some had their works cited on every page but others had theirs at the end on a works cited page. Over all I feel like my presentation met the standards but there was still more that I may have been able to do to improve it.

A10.3: Revised Research Question

jones405 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:53:55 +0000

What pre-literacy skills are required for children who will read using braille in order to develop adequate academic literacy abilities?

A10.2: Web Evaluation II

jones405 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:22:01 +0000

Authorship:

Sara J. Blake is the author on this site. She is not an author that is well known or recognized. She is a freelance writer who has published many articles online and in print about visual impairment and related issues. There is a link on this page to visit her writing porfolio. On that site, it gives other writing samples that she has published. The site does not give biographical information on the main page but there is a link to her sample writings where it does list some information on her. It does list other sites such as The American Counsil of the Blind that I would trust. At the bottom of the page it lists the authors email address so that she may be contacted. The site seems to be created for the authors professional duties. This site can be reached from another site that discusses braille literacy. I was unable to verify the identity of the server where the document resides. The site does not give much more information other than the information and the works cited.

Publishing Body

At the bottom of the article there is a link that you can click on that states LinuxPowered. I do not know if this is a certain type of organization but there was nothing else on the site. It also gives a link on braille/literacy which is the home page. There are no headers, footers, or a distinctive watermark that show the document to be part of an official academic or scholarly Web site. There is another link to the braille/literacy page that gives more information on this. I have never heard of this site in my field of study. The organization is capable of addressing the information that I will need for this assignment. It discusses the authors credintials at the bottom of the site by discussing the organizations that the author has writtin for and who she has be affiliated with.

Point of View or Bias

http://blindness.growingstrong.org/ed/aa010301a.htm. This document reside on the Web server of an organization that has a clear stake in the issue at hand. It discusses all issues that deal with the deaf culture. This site does not have a political or philosophical agenda that I could see.

Referral to and/or Knowledge of the Literature

When you click on the sample writings of Sara, it takes you to a page that gives you a bibliography of the author. It gives information on schooling along with other things. On the main site, it also gives information on other sources that she uses through out her work. This is important so that you can see others views and information as well as the authors own.

Accuracy or Verifiability of Details

This section is very important because this is an unfamiliar author to me. All of the information that the author states is appropraite for the information that was being searched. It allows the information to be duplicated for purposes of verification by request of the author. The author relies on other sources to get out the information needed to inform people on braille literacy. All of the other sources that were used were published and are able to be searched through another site.

Currency

Copyright was stated at the bottom of the page, 2003. It also states the dates of the copyrights to all of the other sources that were used on this page. It does not state whether the article has been updates lately or if it has to be updated. All of the information that was used is from 1990 to present.

A9.4: Research Question on Literacy

jones405 — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:32:11 +0000

How is braille literacy taught to the blind population?

A9.3: Better Dog Food Web Site Evaluation

jones405 — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:30:04 +0000

Site name: Better Dog Food

URL: http://www/betterdogfood.com/

Accuracy:

The author does not cite sources used to develope the site. The site mentions other sites but does not cite information. It is not possible to verify the legitimacy of these sources because I did not see any. There does not seem to be any background that could point to knowledge of the subjects covered. The site does not seem to be researched-based and the author does not identify the method of research and the data gathered.

Authority:

Authors name/Management team were listed, Rebecca Hargrave and Carl Malamud. Here it gives information about the authors such as what position they hold in the company and what they do. It does give Rebeccas email address and states that Carl is a frequent international speaker. The site was referenced in a document that I trusted.

Objectivity:

The aim of the organization publishing this site was to get users to use an online dog that they give to you and you buy the food for your dog from them. The purpose of this site was to advertise their online dog and food. It also gave other websites where you can find information about things for dogs. I do not trust this organization and would not buy anything from them.

Currency:

The only date I could find on this page was the copyright which was in 2000, but no other dates were listed. There were no sources listed. Seeing as how there are no dates, I do not know if anything must be kept up to date or if anything is ever changed. The links on the page do point to the correct webaddress.

Coverage:

The topics on the site are not explored in depth. It took me a while to even understand what the site for addressing. I think the links on the sites are used as examples. I do not think these links are relevant. The information is not valuable at all to me.

A9.1: Adaptive Technology Project – Self Evaluation

jones405 — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:31:11 +0000

After waiting a week after making my power point presentation on the braille display, I was able to evaluate it better after there had been time that passed. Once I went through the presentation once, I realized how short it was. I remembered that a lot of the information that I research was very repetetive and did not give a whole lot of information, but I wish I could have found more important information that I could have used. I feel like it covered all of the main questions such as who, what, when, where, how, and why. I do feel like giving more information on the history of the braille display would have been beneficial. I also feel that it would have been better if I went into more detail about how the display worked. Someone that has never heard of this stay may be confused after reading the slides. I feel that the order the slides are in are good and should not be changed.

A8.3: Response to Eshet-Alkali and Amichai-Hamburger (2004)

jones405 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:38:07 +0000

Ashley Jones

3/9/09

Source: Eshet-Alkali, Y., & Amichai-Hamburger, Y. (2004, August). Experiments in digital literacy.Cyberpsychology and Behavior, 7(4), 421-429.

Purpose:

The main purpose of this article was to discuss the many different skills that a person may need in using and understanding digital literacy. The different skills needed are discussed throughout the article along with giving a better understanding of it.

Question:

The key question the author is trying to address is what types of cognitive skills do you need to be able to use digital literacy. The author also asks what type of groups of cognitive skills that people may possess, such as photo-visual skills, reproduction skills, branching skills, information skills, and socio-emotional skills, do the best with this. Some people may possess all of these skills but do better in one than another.

Assumptions:

After reading this article, I believe that the author assumes that the older generation knows less about digital literacy than the younger generation. I think this is an assumption that may be accurate because technology is becoming so much more dominate in the younger generation. The older popluation are found to be more literate in reproduction and information literacy tasks.

Points of View:

The main point of view presented in this article is that digitial literacy has become a survival skill used in technology. You need certian cognitive skills to do things in digital literacy such as surfing the web, working with databases, chatting, and many other things.

Information:

The most important information in this article discusses the different types of cognitive skills used in digital literacy. Photo-visual literacy deals with using vision to think. This is where you read and understand instructions and the message that is being presented. Reproduction literacy is the ability to create new meanings or new interpretations by combining preexisting information. Branching literacy requires that people that have good spatial-multidimentional sens of orientation stay oriented and do not get lost while navigating through complex knowledge domains. Information literacy acts as a filter. Here it allows the identification of flase, irrelevant, or biased information and does not allow penetration into a learners cognitiion. Socio-emotional literacy is the highest and most complex. It allows people to share their information with others, evaluating data, thinking abstractly, and the ability to design knowledge through virtual collaboration.

Concepts:

One of the key concepts that we need to understand in this article is the list of major guidelines utilized in the evaluation of digitial literacy tasks(Table 1). For each skill it lists the evaluation guidelines needed. I believe this table helps you better understand these skills.

Inferences/Conclusions:

The main inferences/conclusions in this article are now that we know all of the cogvitive skills that we need to have to use digitial literacy are going to better the software made in the future. This will allow users to be able to use the digital literacy without demanding further skills from the user.

Implications:

The implications of this line of reasoning are that if the information is true, then a lot of the younger scholarly generation are easily manipulated by biased or false information. This suggests the role of teh educational system in giving priority to programs that develop critical thinking and promote information literacy and gives responsibility of news and marketing agencies in considering the way they design and deliver information.